LONDON, England - March 23, 2009 - They already track innocent citizens' movements with CCTV, are in cahoots with police over speed cameras, and have been using powers supposed to tackle terrorism to put tails on people suspected of minor 'crimes'.

Now local authorities are putting spy planes in the air to snoop on homeowners who are wasting too much energy.

The data is being used to create color-coded maps which will enable council officers to identify offenders and pay them a visit to educate them about the harm to the environment and measures they can take.

A scheme is already underway in Broadland District Council in Norfolk, which has spent £30,000 hiring a plane with a thermal imaging camera.

It said the exercise has been so successful other local authorities are planning to follow suit.

But critics have warned the crackdown was another example of local authorities extending their charter to poke their noses into every aspect of people's lives.

Broadland, which covers towns including Aylsham, Reepham and Acle, hired the plane from a Leicestershire-based company for five days at the end of January.

The aircraft took images of homes and businesses, with those losing the most heat showing up as red, while better-insulated properties appear blue.

The council's head of environmental services, Andy Jarvis, said the original plan was to target businesses but it was realized the scope could be extended to include residental properties.

“The project we put together was for a plane to go up on various nights flying strips of the district and taking pictures,” he said. “Through those images, a thermal image photograph can be created in which you can pick out individual properties that are losing a lot of heat. We do a lot on domestic energy conservation already and realized it would be useful to see if any of the homes that were particularly hot were properties where people had not insulated their lofts. We were also able to look at very cold properties and think we might have picked up people on low incomes who are not heating their homes because they cannot afford to.”

Ed. Note: Coming to your neighborhood soon in the Fascist States of Amerika!